Лейганн Доббс - A Twist In The Tail

Stella sighed and pointed at the scrap of paper on the floor. ‘Okay, I admit it. I wasn’t borrowing a recipe. I was returning one.’

‘Returning?’ I bent down to pick the paper up.

‘Yes, it’s Millie’s sour cream coffee cake recipe. It’s really delicious, so I stole it to make for the cooking contest. I wanted to sneak in and return it sooner but after you came over and started asking all the questions about why I was hanging around the Guesthouse, I didn’t dare. So when I heard you wouldn’t be here and the place would be unlocked, I figured it was a perfect time to return it.’

I stared at the paper in my hand. Handwritten on a blue lined index card and smudged with an old butter stain was Millie’s distinctive handwriting in a faded blue pen. It was the missing Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe. Had Stella really broken in just to return it or was this some clever trick to use as an excuse to be here because she really was breaking in to get the trumped-up evidence?

‘But it has to be you,’ I said.

Meroo!

That one came from the hallway, probably the cats were just figuring out we had the killer cornered in the kitchen. But now, looking at the recipe I had to wonder if we’d made a mistake.

‘Why does it have to be me? I'm not the only one who could poison the gulls. Why don’t you ask Barbara Littlefield? She's the one who was conspiring with Charles up on the cliff.’

Now I knew she was lying. ‘But Barbara said she never met Charles and she—’

A gruff voice in the doorway cut off my words. ‘That's right. I said what I had to say to stop you from nosing around.’

We turned in the direction of the voice to see Barbara Littlefield standing in the doorway with a gun pointed directly at us.

Twenty-Two

I’d been so focused on getting Stella to confess that I never heard Barbara coming in.

Meow!

Nero and Marlowe appeared behind her, blinking at me as if I was the dumbest human on earth. I guess that’s what they’d been meowing about. They’d been trying to warn me.

‘Aren’t you the building inspector?’ Ron asked.

‘Yeah, what of it?’ Barbara glared at him.

‘What do you have to do with all this?’ Ron looked genuinely perplexed and for good reason. Why would Barbara kill Charles? Was she the one poisoning the gulls? Even Stella seemed confused as she glanced from the small silver gun Barbara was waving around to Ron to me.

‘Did you know Charles from before?’ I asked. Maybe she had a grudge? Maybe she’d been one of the many he’d had an affair with and was out for revenge.

‘No. That dimwit thought he could outsmart me though. Ha!’ Barbara jerked the gun toward the door to the basement. ‘Now all three of you shuffle over toward the cellar nice and slow.’

I glanced at the door and shivered. I’d only been down in the basement once and that was plenty for me. It was an old house and the basement was dark, dank and full of spiders the size of kittens.

Meow.

Nero rubbed up against Barbara’s ankle.

She shook her foot to push him away.

‘Get lost, Kitty.’ Her face twisted even more. ‘I thought I told you not to have cats in the kitchen. It’s a code violation. I’d write you up, but after I burn the place you won’t even have a kitchen.’

‘But why would Charles blackmail you?’ Ron asked.

Barbara gestured with the gun again and we all shuffled a bit closer to the door. ‘He shouldn’t have been up on the cliff. I mean what kind of a stupid cookbook uses flockenberries? They don’t taste that good, you know.’

‘The gulls seem to like them,’ Stella said.

‘Yeah. Unfortunately. That’s how he found out.’ Barbara gestured with the gun again and we moved another half inch.

Meow!

Marlowe scratched Barbara’s ankle.

Barbara lashed out with her foot. Luckily, she missed the cat. Unluckily she kept her grip on the gun and her eyes on us. I had to wonder if the cats were trying to distract her.

‘Found out about what?’ I prompted. Maybe if she got talkative one of the others would come back and save us.

A sly look came over Barbara’s face. ‘About what I was doing to the flockenberries. Someone had to get rid of those nuisance berry plants. Still hadn’t perfected the poison though, I had a few experiments going on.’

I remembered the dead plants in her office. Had she been experimenting on those?

‘So you poisoned the berries to get rid of the gulls?’ Ron asked.

‘No. Not the gulls, but hey, they are a nuisance. Town should thank me. I was trying to save the lousewort from getting choked out. If the lousewort dies the cliff will no longer be protected and next thing you know a big giant hotel will be looming over us ruining the quaint ambiance of the town.’

‘That’s preposterous,’ Ron said. ‘Those lousewort plants must have been there for generations.’

Merooo!

Marlowe wound around Barbara’s feet and she glanced down annoyed but then looked right back up at us. Guess she didn’t want to be distracted too long for fear one of us would lunge for the gun which, of course, had been exactly my plan.

‘That’s where you’re wrong. That lousewort was never here. I imported it and planted it to stop the hotel from being built. Cost me a pretty penny and was a lot of work keeping it thriving. And you people,’ Barbara waved the gun at me and Stella as we jumped back. ‘Don’t even appreciate my efforts! Now where would the town be if I hadn’t done that!’

I remembered Jen had mentioned that Barbara got dirty packages. Had it been the lousewort? Where had she imported it from? I knew it was protected here in New England, but thought I’d heard my mother mention something about it growing like a weed in some other country. Maybe she’d sent away for it and no wonder she’d had to spend so much time ‘mothering’ it, the cliff wasn’t its natural habitat and it needed extra care.

But none of that mattered now. The only thing that did was making sure we did not get forced down into that basement.

Barbara smiled, but it wasn’t a warm and fuzzy smile, it was cold and calculating mixed with a bit of pride. She shoved the gun forward. ‘To the basement door!’

We shuffled over more. Now we were right next to the door. Time was running out. I glanced at my watch.

Barbara laughed. ‘Hoping someone will come back early from dinner? Hardly. It’s only eight o’clock and your guests will be at the Marinara Mariner for another hour at least. Guess your little plan to lure the killer here didn’t work out so well after all.’

‘Well, it did lure the killer here...’ Even facing death, I felt defensive of my plan.

‘Yeah, but it gave me an even better idea. Now that I have to get rid of you and the evidence, a nice fire will do the trick!’

My gut clenched. She was planning to shove us in the basement and set the place on fire. My mind raced. I had to do something to stop her. I glanced around for a weapon, but only saw bowls, dish towels and canisters.

Barbara moved forward, stepping on Nero’s tail and earning a screech and hiss from him. ‘Open the basement door and shove those cats down there first.’

Nero looked up at Barbara and wrinkled his nose, then glanced at me.

My heart clenched at the thought of the cats burning in a fire. At least maybe I could save them. ‘Not the cats. Let them go, they’re innocent.’

‘Yeah,’ Stella agree. ‘Killing us is one thing but not innocent kitties.’

I glanced at Stella. She actually had a heart?

If the cats could understand Barbara, they were being awfully calm about their fate. Marlowe stretched and Nero trotted over to the cellar door. He glanced up at me and then at the doorknob. Suddenly I got an idea.